I hope everyone had a thanks-filled weekend surrounded by family and friends! (And maybe some pie...)
Since it's the start of a new week, that means it's time for a brand-new (and slightly truncated) roundup of crime drama news:
THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES
Warner Bros. has hired director Albert Hughes to helm a reboot of the 1993 crime drama, The Fugitive. The film is said to put a "new spin" on the original film starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones about an innocent man running from the law for murdering his wife. The film was in turn based on a 1963 TV series starring David Janssen and Barry Morse. (The Warner Bros project is not to be confused with the streaming service Quibi's reboot of The Fugitive, which stars Kiefer Sutherland and Boyd Holbrook in the story of a bomber attacking an LA subway station.)
Saban Films has acquired North American rights to Martin Owen’s Twist. The modern take on Charles Dickens’s classic, Oliver Twist, stars Academy Award-winner Michael Caine along with Lena Headey, Rita Ora, Raff Law, and Sophie Simnett. From a script written by John Wrathall and set in contemporary London, the story follows a gifted graffiti artist who is lured into a street gang headed by a father figure, Fagin, who plans a series of audacious art thefts. Also starring are Robert Glenister (Live By Night), George Russo (I Am Soldier) and Izuka Hoyle (Mary Queen of Scots).
Production is underway on the British drama, Here Before, the feature debut of writer and director Stacey Gregg. The psychological thriller stars Birdman's Andrea Riseborough as a bereaved mother who begins to question her reality when new neighbors move in next door.
Finn Wittrock has been added to the cast of Deep Water, the Adrian Lyne-directed thriller starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas. The story is based on a Patricia Highsmith novel and follows an attractive young married couple, Vic and Melinda Van Allen, whose mind games with each other take a twisted turn when people around them start turning up dead.
Vertigo Releasing has picked up the Craig Fairbrass-starring thriller, Villain, for UK and Ireland release. Villain follows Eddie Franks, a man who is released from prison after serving a 10-year sentence and attempts to help his family by reconnecting with his daughter and clearing his brother’s debt. Despite his best efforts, he finds himself drawn back into a life of crime, with devastating consequences.
TELEVISION/STREAMING SERVICES
Killing Eve director Shannon Murphy and Beatrix Christian (Picnic at Hanging Rock) are adapting Emily Bitto’s novel, The Strays, as a six-part TV series. Inspired by the Australian artist collective Heide Circle, The Strays explores what happens when a violent act in the past of a subversive group of artists is linked to the death of a young woman in the present.
Justified alum David Meunier is set for a recurring role in Marvel’s Helstrom, the forthcoming Hulu series based on the comic book. Helstrom follows Daimon and Ana Helstrom, played by Tom Austen and Sydney Lemmon, the son and daughter of a mysterious and powerful serial killer. Meunier will play Finn Miller, a part of a secret organization that handles work not for the faint of heart.
The Tony Award-winning actress Katrina Lenk (The Band’s Visit) has been cast in a recurring role in CBS’s upcoming midseason drama series, Tommy, as a sports agent. Tommy stars Edie Falco as Abigail "Tommy" Thomas, a former high-ranking NYPD officer who becomes the first female Chief of Police for Los Angeles.
HBO Max has picked the U.S. rights to the British crime drama, White House Farm, starring The Irishman’s Stephen Graham and Black ’47’s Freddie Fox. The six-part series is based on the true story of members of the same family who were murdered at an Essex farmhouse in 1985. Graham plays DCI "Taff" Jones and Fox plays the killer, Jeremy Bamber. Mark Addy, Gemma Whelan, Mark Stanley, Alexa Davies, Cressida Bonas, Alfie Allen, Amanda Burton, and Nicholas Farrell also star.
Amazon has ordered a second season of the Indian thriller, The Family Man. The series stars Manoj Bajpayee and Priyamani and tells the story of a middle-class man who secretly works as a spy for a branch of the National Investigation Agency while also dealing with a wife and two kids.
PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO
The latest Spybrary podcast featured a round table discussion about Agent Running In the Field by John le Carré.
On the Writers Detective Bureau, host and veteran Police Detective Adam Richardson tackled the topics of "Boot, Deconfliction, and Pending Further Leads."
It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club welcomed two authors to the show, Rosemary Simpson (the Gilded Age Mysteries) and Gilly Macmillan, whose first novel, What She Knew was an Edgar Award finalist.
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